One record after another sketched out the process by which this man named Sanchez explored the past of Shirakawa Apartments step by step.
It had to be said this guy was quite capable—able to infiltrate all sorts of places to find useful information, and he had indeed gotten quite a lot.
However, the effective information he had left here was not much; the vast majority of his investigations had ended in failure. In Takumi's view, the most noteworthy among them was the information concerning 309.
Room 309 was the room Kyosei had mentioned in the rule sheet as the one he lived in.
Previously, everyone's attention had been focused on Rooms 109 and 304, but the significance of Room 309 had not been given much weight. After all, in the view of Takumi and the others, that was merely the place where the organizer of the previous generation's survivor team had lived.
But now, with Sanchez's investigation having been uncovered, Takumi had no choice but to include Room 309 among the rooms that required focused attention.
He walked up to the desk covered with various documents.
Takumi pulled out the chair and sat down, then reached out and opened the diary lying on the desk.
[I secretly made a copy of the key to Room 309 and entered his room while Kyosei was away on Sunday.]
[Nothing found.]
[There was no abnormal presence in that room; it was exactly the same as every other room in Shirakawa Apartments.]
[Maybe I need to come at night to see if there's anything unusual?]
[I decided to take a risk and stay in this room until night. The "problems" inside Shirakawa Apartments have mostly stopped being active by now. Although, as someone who has changed rooms once, I'm more prone to encountering danger, this time I must find a useful clue no matter what.]
[Nothing found.]
[Whether day or night, there's nothing abnormal in 309.]
[Was my line of thought wrong?]
[Maybe I still need to return to 304. Although it's extremely dangerous there, perhaps I truly can find some useful clues.]
[However, last time the commotion I caused while exploring 304 was too big and ended up getting noticed. I'll need to be more cautious next time.]
So this guy even duplicated the key to 309 and sneaked in to stay there for an entire day…
Takumi furrowed his brow and continued flipping through the pages.
Many of the pages in the diary had been torn out, or were completely blank without a single word written on them, so he turned several pages in a row before finally finding another page with writing on it.
[6th Exploration Record of Room 304]
[No matter how many times I come in, it's still extremely hard to adapt to the environment here. The entire room feels utterly distorted—various things mixed together into a labyrinth-like world.]
[Passing through this area right under "those things'" noses is far too difficult. Fortunately, as long as I make some noise, I can draw their attention away.]
[This time, I have to at least investigate the situation in the living room thoroughly.]
The 6th time?!
Was Room 304 actually a place one could just enter and leave so freely?
[11th Exploration Record of Room 304]
[Confirmed three individuals distinctly different from the other corpses—one adult male, one adult female, and one male child.]
[Why are there four sets of bowls and chopsticks for three people?]
[14th Exploration Record of Room 304]
[They're repeating the behaviors they had while alive. The male would beat the female after getting drunk. This is the first time I've seen such a brutal… act of abuse.]
[I stole a few IOUs from there—this family had many of them.]
[The man's name is Takeda Yūsuke, and his wife is Takeda Kazue. Just the few IOUs I took already add up to more than 100,000 yen. How could people living in a place like this possibly owe so much money?]
[19th Exploration Record of Room 304]
[Today those two adults called out the boy's name—it's Takeda Takeshi.]
[So far, I've observed 6 different repetitive behaviors. Each time, only these three people appear, but whenever a meal is involved, they always set out four sets of bowls and chopsticks. Could it be that there's a fourth person in this room—someone I've yet to discover?]
[Come to think of it, the boy's voice is quite distinctive. Yet according to the descriptions given by the residents who experienced the knocking incident, the crying of the one who knocked sounded muffled, but still carried a certain sharpness—more like the crying of a little girl.]
[There must still be something I haven't found.]
[There must be a hidden room in 304, a place concealed away. Only by finding that place can the entire truth be uncovered.]
[21st Exploration Record of Room 304]
[I know her name now. Her name is—]
Takumi closed his eyes.
He didn't continue reading, didn't go on looking at the words written in the notebook.
A strong stench of alcohol spread behind him, accompanied by a man's heavy breathing.
A woman's coughing sounded within the room, along with slow, dragging footsteps moving behind Takumi.
And a boy's stifled laughter—he could even feel fingers lightly poking his back, one after another.
"…"
Takumi remained silent and still, sitting motionless in his seat.
The voices of those three people sounded behind him—again and again.
It was as if this were truly their house, as if they were living here even now.
Those sounds continued for several minutes before gradually fading, returning to silence.
Only when the reek of alcohol had completely dissipated did Takumi open his eyes again and look at the notebook in his hands.
He directly turned to the next page, without glancing again at the previous one.
[22nd Exploration of Room 304—]
But starting from that page, every record had been torn to pieces, leaving nothing legible.
Every page thereafter had been completely torn out. Considering that no one else should have entered this room, it was very likely the author himself who had destroyed them.
Because he had learned information about the most forbidden child in Shirakawa Apartments, he himself had suffered severe contamination and erosion, and before completely losing control, had destroyed information that was even more dangerous? Come to think of it, this man had entered both 309 and 304 successively, and even mentioned that he had left a cassette tape here—perhaps that very thing could be found in this place.
Takumi closed the notebook, then looked toward the files lying on the desk.
It was clear that these sealed files were things Sanchez had gone to great lengths to steal from various archives. For an ordinary person to accomplish such a thing was, to be honest, rather unbelievable. Perhaps he had relied on some sort of supernatural power.
Takumi did not open those files. First, because there were simply too many of them, and he vaguely sensed that he would not be able to remain here for long; and second, compared with investigating these files that likely contained no key information, it was more important to first confirm the clues he had already found.
With that thought, Takumi stood up, swept his gaze around the room, and then walked over to a row of hooks beside the living room door. He reached out and took down a small key strung together with a thin cord.
On one side of the key were engraved the numbers "304." Could this key be the means to reach 304?
In the previous loop, Takumi had already seen where the door to 304 was located. Now, the third floor of Shirakawa Apartments had completely turned into a distorted realm. Who knew what the root of that distortion—Room 304—had now become.
Regardless of whether he would go there or not, having the item in hand was what mattered. After all, the difference between having a choice and having none was still quite significant.
Afterward, Takumi searched through the various cabinets in the room and finally found, inside a small drawer, a cassette tape stored within a metal box.
The cassette itself already looked rather old. Honestly speaking, even if he found a working cassette player, Takumi felt this thing might not even be able to produce any sound.
Next, should he check whether there were any other clues?
While thinking that, Takumi put away both the key and the cassette and began walking toward the desk where the various files were placed.
[Zzzt—]
At that moment, he heard a sharp, grating noise coming from the computer screen on one side of the room.
Turning his head, he saw that the monitor had lit up.
Through the blurred resolution, Takumi saw that what appeared on the screen was the very living room he was in right now. It even seemed to be a live feed, for he could see himself standing before the computer, staring at the screen.
[Creak—]
The living room door opened, making a noise.
It wasn't the living room door in the real world—but the one inside the computer screen.
Takumi saw the door within the screen open, and a man walked into the room, going straight to the desk. He pulled out the chair and sat down.
Takumi turned his head. Behind him was nothing—no one at all.
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